Welcome back to The Obvious Channel, where I have many obvious things to say.
And the obvious thing that comes to mind today is it feels good to feel good.
We love having a good mood.
Those days when everything is just lined up right, and feels like life is good.
It’s all these different ingredients together that merge together in this smooth harmony of circumstances and conditions and feelings to make things feel good.
But of course, nothing lasts.
Nothing can be sustained.
It’s just that when I get into one of those good moods, I want to remain in the good mood, and yet I never do.
I can even start to have this feeling when I’m in a very good mood that ah, I know it’s gonna pass.
And I want to sustain it, but I don’t know how.
Because it seems like to have a good mood, to be in that good state, so many things have to line up.
And I don’t even know what most of them are.
It’s kind of a mystery.
I mean, sure, we can say things like get a good sleep, eat good food, exercise.
It keeps coming back to those three basic physical foundations.
Sleep, food, exercise: doing those well tends to result more likely in having good moods, but certainly doesn’t automatically make it at all.
It doesn’t make you happy all the time if you have good, sleep, food and exercise.
Just removes some of the easiest ways to easily have bad moods.
But so many factors, you know, how we’re feeling inside, how our social interactions, personal interactions, how we’re feeling about the work we’re doing.
Even the weather has its effect.
Sunshine versus clouds.
This whole formula all mixed together.
And then it comes out with “Wow, you know, life is pretty good.” Or “Wow, life is terrible.” Even with very small changes to any real conditions, it can just have a different perspective.
And there may also be a mindset part of this, the way we interpret events, the way we interpret what happens.
And that seems to maybe be one of the aspects that we can control the most, is how do we interpret what happens? If we make a story about it, like “Oh, things are the way they are because of what’s wrong with me.” That could lead to easily getting into a negative state.
Or “Things are the way they are, and I’m just going to enjoy them in a simple way.” That may lead to better states: not being attached to the good and bad states.
And that seems to be one of the things that I find helpful, and what I try to remind myself when I’m falling out of the good mood.
This happened a couple days ago.
So two days ago, I was in a very good mood, and then yesterday, I was in a bad mood.
So what happened? I could just feel the change, all the different circumstances just shifting.
And the thought that I had is I need to let go of the good mood I need to be OK with having a bad mood.
It’s OK.
Because these things pass.
It’s like the weather.
If it’s going to be a cloudy day, we can let it be a cloudy day, let it rain, and the sun will eventually come back.
We don’t need to hold on to this “Oh, why can’t it be sunny today? It was so sunny yesterday, but now it’s not sunny.
This is terrible.” You can just let it happen.
Let it.
Because it’s just so easy to be attached to that good mood, because it feels so good.
But if I can just let go of the good mood, not try to be happy, not try to have a good mood, just let myself have a bad day and carry on doing the fundamentals of what I believe will be good and not worry about not feeling great that day.
Much easier said than done, and it’s as much a message to myself as anybody else, that the more I try to hold on to a happy feeling, the more strained and difficult and the more suffering that it creates.
But instead, I can just let it go.
Happiness, just like the weather, will come and go, and I can no more hold on to happiness than I can hold on to a sunny summer day.
#happiness #moods #letgo